3rd February 2013
Aiming Low
The new age of Abe has witnessed a series of milestones over the past week. The new administration was swept into power due to dissatisfaction with the general competence of the DPJ-led government, and particularly with the government’s seemingly powerlessness to lift the economy out of the doldrums of deflation. There was also a perception that a sterner policy was required towards China, and to a lesser degree North Korea, for Japan to finally stand up to the neighbourhood bullies. The government has attempted to illustrate its competence by a series of confidence building measures at home and abroad, with Abe, Aso, and others making sure to have their faces seen and hands shaken hither and thither, and seems to have made some sort of impression, with the PM himself having recently visited Tohoku, Okinawa, and South-East Asia. His next big trip is to the US to talk with President Obama about how nasty to be to China, and how positive to be towards the TPP trade bloc negotiations.
The milestones have not been consistent. On the plus side has been the highest levels seen for the Dollar and Pound in more than two years, with several manufacturers predicting a whole new world for Japanese exporters. This is due to an odd phenomenon known as either ‘confidence building’ or ‘chicken’: tell the financial markets you are going to do something, take action, have an effect, and if they believe you, then they will move that way before you actually need to act. Abe promised to spend big to lower the value of the yen, so now he doesn’t need to spend. Whether the fall, and the concurrent rise in the stock markets, will continue isn’t clear, but the ‘Abe impact’ is very clear and should be recognised.
On the minus side though, 2012 saw the first drop in gross regular employees’ salaries including bonuses below the 10million yen mark (about $107,000, or 68,500pounds) for more than 20 years. This is deflation in action, as salaries have been falling from the high of 1997, and winter bonuses in 2012 dropped for the first time in three years, a major factor as bonus payments often constitute between a third and a half of earned income for Japanese regular employees. While the income amounts seem high (and exceed the limits of middle-ranking academics), taxes and insurance premiums are set to rise, and tax payers get comparatively little for their contributions, with charges made for school and college education, medical treatment, and most services, making Japan a midway point between the tendency for state welfare systems in Europe and the generally laissez faire approach of the United States. The fact that deflation has accompanied these salary drops has made life for those in regular employment relatively comfortable, but the devaluing of the yen will further increase energy costs, and Abe’s aim is to drive out deflation, with the potential short-term effect upon personal budgets. Those that will suffer most if these efforts proceed will be the non-regular workers of Japan, those on fixed term contracts, part-time workers, and the irregular ranks of ‘freeters’ who work when they can at what they can. With the PM set to cut welfare payments at the same time as attacking deflation there are a lot of people at the bottom who are due for a bumpy ride. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013013100858
Another milestone was reached when the budget submission requests were released. ODA budgets were to be cut for the 14th year in a row, while the defence budget was to be increased for the first time in 11 years. The ODA cut issue is ongoing, with the high yen making Japan the second largest ODA contributor in total, and the government making the claim that the money is being targeted more effectively, as all governments claim. However, the Japanese are making a significant effort to target Burma and certain African nations, to both aid developing societies’ stability and prosperity and to aid Japan’s belated efforts to ‘think strategically’ in its aid in competition with an aggressively ambitious Chinese aid effort.
The defence budget
rise was posted from December’s election campaign, but the rather hubristic approach
of the LDP, particularly its leader Abe, to this has resulted in the actual
increase, just under 0.8%, seem rather churlish. If there is a dire need that
Abe insisted there was then why not more? Indeed, when the figures released (in
Japanese http://www.mod.go.jp/j/yosan/2013/yosan.pdf
) are examined, the changes are minor, yet some are seemingly contradictory for
the PM’s rhetoric.
The defence budget for 2012 (under the DPJ) was 4645.3billion yen, a 0.4% cut compared to the 2011 budget,
and part of the trend of cuts since 1998. The 2013 request of 4680.4billion yen
equals an increase of 0.755%. Now, there are still cuts
in the defence budgets, with the GSDF having a 4.5% cut, ASDF 1.9% cut, and
MSDF 1% increase, with an overall 2.2% cut for the three services! One assumes
that Abe hasn't shouted about that too loudly while waving his flag. This is
set against big increases for the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS)
the MOD think-tank (15.2% inc.), weapons technology (56.2% inc) and other
research, and the Joint Staff Office (3.9%), while the Defence Intelligence Headquarters
got a 1.4% increase, and the JSDF Medical School was up over 9%.
The MOD are estimating cuts in personnel
and food costs, while a more than 9% increase in general costs associated with activities
(which usually refers to fuel). The increases for 2013 on fuel are only very
slight though, a 5.6billion yen increase, while 16.3bllion extra will be spent
on equipment, and 68.3billion on a new electronic accounting system. Spending
on JSDF bases will drop very slightly (excluding SACO payments to support US
Forces Japan).
As ever with Abe there is what he says he is and what he actually is. Talk and
walk quietly and carry a big stick has been displaced by talk loudly and tiptoe
along. He and the LDP policy people might well state that this is their
strategy, to make China take notice and reconsider their provocative actions
(talking loudly) but also not actually inflaming an already tense situation
(tiptoeing). However, the Chinese are very good at subtle messages, and in
Chinese approaches the maxim is 'everything counts', therefore 'everything is
part of strategy', so really there is no reason to shout quite so loudly; they
can hear you. The real target is naturally the Japanese population, and the
election to the upper house in the summer. Abe wants to wipe his slate clean by
delivering the most impressive LDP working majority in parliament since
Koizumi.
Will the budget contribute more to Japan's defence? That completely depends
upon what the detailed plans are, and this budget tells us a little but not a
lot. The cut of 70 GSDF personnel is among nursing students, but the increases
in the MSDF and ASDF personnel aren't clear, although there are hints that they
relate to monitoring the situation around the Senkakus. The MSDF have been
undermanned for years, but that is their own fault, as they've commissioned too
many ships for their personnel to handle.
The budget specifies 11 Type 96 APCs, 45 LAVs (like small armoured Humvees or
Landrovers), and four amphibious tracked vehicles of unspecified type, as well
as one medium helicopter for service in the south-west islands, but that is no
different from the standing DPJ plan, and likely to add very little real
capability, but simply indicates a trend previously noted. 8million yen to
investigate Tilt-rotor aircraft (Osprey) is much the same. 49 LAV were bought last
year, as were Type 96 APC and helicopters, and these were not for Senkaku-related
duties use, and the same will almost certainly be true for the 2013 additions.
We see the continuation of old school ‘industrial
military’ thinking. 14 Type-10 tanks, almost a billion yen each, just under
$11million. Four land-based anti-ship missile systems, 2billion yen each. Two
more AEGIS destroyers, rather than two logistics support vessels, which would
be much cheaper to build and man, and would enhance total fleet capability far
more than another two very complex, difficult to man 'up front' combat units.
All head and no tail makes for a very oddly unbalanced dog. The new school is
represented by more money (and possibly people) for cyber warfare defence, and
in intelligence analysis. There is also more money devoted to radar and signals
installations, almost all presumably for the south-west, and all of that seems
very sensible given recent and not so recent developments.
So, what does it all mean? Well, nice but...
One presumes that the real story is yet to come, in the review of the review
that will report later in the year, presumably after the election. That will
pave the way (presuming an LDP victory) for more dramatic changes and
probable spending increases, and I'm sure that Mitsubishi Corp. will be very
happy with that. Nothing yet has been said about the real changes to the JSDF
much stated by Abe, in name, in manpower, in configuration, in the size, shape,
and use of reserves, little on overseas deployments. This week has seen the PM
make his first statement of the year on changing the constitution (not yet),
the ban on collective self-defence (think about it for a while, the US don’t
want it in a hurry it seems), and making the JSDF a Japanese Military
(pending). Therefore although Abe and chums are talking loudly about the
importance of this budget it is more as an exercise in domestic house-keeping,
while the actual changes to the fabric of the building will come later. The
real defence review will come beyond the summer election, after the LDP have
had a chance to work out exactly what their policy is.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130107a1.html
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20130203_07.html
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013012900792
The PM has even made some comment on the 1993 war apology this week, and the issue of ‘comfort women’, the many thousands of women tricked or compelled to act as prostitutes or sex-slaves for Imperial Japanese forces. His comments came in a House of Representatives plenary session, when he said he would not be directly involved in a possible revision to a 1993 statement on the issue by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei, and then said the current Cab Sec (Suga) should deal with it, and moved on as quickly as possible. In the 1993 statement, Japan recognized the involvement of the imperial military in managing the women. As Jiji news reported on 31st January, “In the leadership election campaign for the Liberal Democratic Party last September, Abe said Japan should replace the statement because no evidence has been found to back up the claim that the military of the time forced women into wartime brothels.” Sincerity is a wonderful thing.
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2013013100990
And The Japan Times published an extract from its archives of 1938 that reminds us all of the mindset that denieｄ Japan’s unsavoury historical incidents:
“For the manifestation and enhancement of the “Japan Spirit” abroad, however, there is something to be done beforehand in this part of the world — the Orient. That is to reconstruct and rehabilitate the stricken Asian continent. We must first strengthen cooperation among Japan, Manchukuo and China, bound together as they are with a common civilization, establish a basic principle of sufficing one another from the standpoints of national defense and industries, check others’ malicious activities in the Orient and eventually build a new land for co-existence and co-prosperity among the three countries.
It is exceedingly regrettable, however, that China under the Nanking regime has not only betrayed the other two in that great task but has also resorted to a policy of anti-Japanese resistance.
Such being the situation, Japan was compelled to take arms against it. This is the origin of the current Sino-Japanese hostilities. Japan’s enemy, therefore, is not the Chinese people but the Government under General Chiang Kai-shek, who is dead to all sense of the shame of selling his country to others.
Japan must continue its fight in China till it can stabilize the foundation of that nation.
As for the Japanese people, they must be prepared to endure whatever sacrifice the country demands.”
Yes indeed. Those terrible Chinese sabotaged Japan’s sincere aspirations by resisting the invasion of their country. The paper added a wonderful end piece:
Ryutaro Nagai, Communications Minister (the writer), “who had served as a Diet member since 1920, died on Dec. 4, 1944, during the Tokyo air raid.”
A minor milestone was the searching of a company here in Fujisawa City, in connection with the incidents that had grounded the Boeing 787 fleet worldwide. Yes, are on the map at last! The reason? Kanto Aircraft Instrument Company, the only functioning part-remnant in Fujisawa of the legacy of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is a world leader in heat-movement and other detection and control systems, and provides the instrumentation for the batteries that have malfunctioned in the 787. The good news is that it seems their equipment is fine, and they are not at fault. The company exists on the south-west corner of the site of the former Fujisawa Naval Air Station between Fujisawa Honmachi and Zengyo, with most of the former airfield now taken up by the Ebara Company, some tennis courts, a gym, and a wholesale area. The site was chosen as it was the pre-war Fujisawa Country and Golf Club, where rich Japanese and Americans would come to play golf and hang out on the highland plateau with a lovely view of Mount Fuji to the west and Enoshima and Sagami Bay to the south. It was used for training pilots, navigators, and signals technicians during the war, and was the planned site for suicidal air attacks upon the huge US fleet that was due to invade the Sagami Bay area in 1945 or 1946. Luckily, that never happened, and the aviation business, initially building light aircraft, shrank to the degree that the only outward signs for most Fujisawa citizens is a bus stop called ‘Kanto Aviation’.
Some might think the general ignorance of local history is a crying shame, such as the City Hall being the site of the former IJN Fujisawa District HQ, and perhaps the degree of ignorance is regrettable, but it is far preferable to any false glorification. I know the Prime Minister isn’t reading this, but at least I can write as though he is, and dream of a better world.
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